The day after our arrival we took the metro to People’s Square, which is one of the important points of downtown. The metro system in Shanghai is very good and easy to figure out. The tickets are sold through automatic machines that also have an English version. One ride costs 4 yuan (80 cents) and we didn’t need to pay for the kids. Our apartment was located 8 stops from the People’s Square, about 30 minutes or so, but we had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the metro station (we could have waited for a bus and do two stops, but we never did).
Once arrived, we walked around in People’s Park.
The park itself wasn’t impressive and we eventually arrived to Shanghai Museum, which is situated at the edge of the park. The weather was very hot and humid so we thought getting inside the museum and have a look would at least give us a break from the heat. The museum is an impressive, modern building and it is also quite new. There is no entrance fee, the exhibits were also good and interesting and we ended up seeing the whole museum, even though it had several different sections on each floor.
The exhibits included bronzes, pottery, furniture, paintings, etc. After that we walked on Fuzhou street, which is one of the main arteries in the centre.
We still had to figure out about the internet, VPN and phone issues, for which we came unprepared. We spent the mornings on these things. After a couple of days we got into some kind of routine and the D and A discovered steam buns. These come with different fillings, like meat, vegetables or even custard.
These buns became the cornerstone of breakfast, and we had a nice small store few minutes walk from our apartment. A grew very affectionate to Wonton soups, this was one of his main courses he always ordered for lunch or dinner. D was more willing to experiment and try out things, as long as she got her steam bun at some point in the day. N is quite picky; he prefers cooked food rather than breads and doughs — he’s not a fan of steam buns at all.
Shanghai, like many other cities, has a Hop-on Hop-off bus. As we figured out, and thanks to the tip from our hosts’ daughter, two different companies run these buses, both of them red. We chose the cheaper one (charging more than 3 times less than the other), which seemed to have more Chinese tourists than foreigners. Both follow similar routes and have audio-guides in different languages, but their add-on options are somewhat different. We didn’t really want to use the add-on options, as the goal was to reduce the amount of walking, which is very tiring for N. It was also easier to understand where we would end up, than taking public transport buses and pay for every trip (there are no transfers on buses). The next day we bought a 48 hours ticket (the two younger kids were free). 150Y seemed like a lot of money to pay, but in fact it was only CA$30 for all the family for two days and saved us a lot of walking. For our first ride, we used the bus to get to the Old Town.
Shanghai is a very modern and western looking city in general and this old part is pretty much what we could define as ‘Chinese’, at least architecturally. This was comforting for A who had this idea that China still looked the same as in the old times and seeing modern Shanghai (and later much the rest of China) was rather disappointing for him. Funny to see how even kids have these romanticized images of far-away places.
The Old Town is partially surrounded by a wall and it is very nice from the architectural point of view. Beautiful buildings, roofs, wooden carvings etc. On the other hand, it is mostly a big shopping area with many smaller and larger shops, selling all kinds of knick-knacks for tourists (not only foreigners) and other merchandise.
In the Old Town, we went by Yuyuan Garden, but we didn’t go in as there was an entrance fee (now I think we should have, but at that point we were not really sure about our expenses and what kinds of sights we should be ready to pay for). The Teahouse, another impressive older building, one of the attractions of the Old Town (we didn’t go in — it seemed rather an exclusive place, although our guidebook recommended it), was in the middle of a large pond that was full of rather big gold fish — to the kids’ delight. They were so impressed by them, it was pretty much all they cared about for the rest of the time while we stayed there.
We took the red bus and went to see the Bund, the area along the river where all the colonial style buildings are located. On the other side of the river you can see Pudong, which is the newer part of the city, with tall skyscrapers and the Pearl Tower.
In the meantime it got dark and that only added to the sight. There is a very nice esplanade along the river, where all the tourists gather up to take endless photos in different poses with their selfie sticks.
On the next day we took the red bus to Pudong, on the route that crosses the river through one of the underground tunnels. We walked around a bit and looked at the Pearl Tower from up close.
It is possible to go up, but we skipped that. Instead, we took the ferry (it was included in the red bus ticket) to go back to Puxi. The ferry ride was only a few minutes as the river is not too wide.
Once on the other side, we got on red bus again (on a different route) and went to the Jewish Refugee Museum. This museum is located in the quarter that hosted around 30 000 Jews (numbers somewhat differ depending on the source) who fled Europe during WWII and were welcomed in Shanghai. It is not a very known ‘episode’ in Jewish history (I saw a documentary about it once), so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about it. In the museum there is a synagogue and another part which focuses on the life of the Jews in the city.
There was also a Chinese animated movie (the first addressing the Holocaust), which we watched a bit (it was a full length movie so we stopped at one point). It is called ‘A Jewish Girl in Shanghai’ and we later found it on YouTube so the kids finished watching it. It is a good movie for kids (though not great), but it was interesting to see the history written from the Chinese perspective. The kids were interested in it.
The next day we visited the ancient town of Qibao, which is a small water town that got swallowed up by the expanding Shanghai. It is not the best water town example, as it has only one canal, but it is easily accessible by metro from the city, while for the other ones we would have needed to take the train and give it a whole day. Retrospectively we should have made such a trip, so this will go on our list of ‘next time.’
Other than being a cute town, Qibao has many food shops and restaurants. One of the interesting snacks foods we saw here were fried chicks (not sure what kind of bird it was).
We had lunch in a restaurant near the water, the food was good, the atmosphere was nice and it was nearly perfect…except for the constant cigarette smoke.
That evening we also met a friend of mine from college, C, who lives and works in Shanghai for the past 7 years. He told us a bit about life in Shanghai (last time we met was about 8 years ago) and helped us to understand some practical things we couldn’t figure out by ourselves. There is nothing like having a local helping you out… C also invited us to a hotpot restaurant (much fancier that the restaurants we were used to go) and we tried out all kinds of things we would probably not have otherwise (like coagulated blood and spongy tofu).
The next day we also visited a part of the French Concession area with him, before heading back to our apartment to get our backpacks and give back the keys. Back to the apartment we thanked our host, in whose apartment we lived during our time in Shanghai. We then headed to the railway station and took out first sleeper train in China.
